Distance Education

1. Identify and briefly discuss 5 advantages of distance education.

While this idea may sound foreign to some people, there are actually a lot of advantages to a distance education. Beginning with the obvious convenience of not having to drive or walk to school everyday, it is easy to see that this is definitely a good choice for people with low attendance rates because of the effort it takes to walk to class. Another benefit of distance education is that it gives flexibility for time and rate of comprehension, meaning that a student can choose to do assignments at the time of day that is most convenient for them. Also, this form of education allows students the freedom to work at their own pace, and eliminates the intimidation that can come with being a slower learner in a classroom full of students that are all moving at a quicker pace. This distance education is also obviously a lot less expensive too because it eliminates the need for classroom supplies project materials. Finally, the final advantage of distance education is the variety of the different subjects that can be taught, due to the fact that WebQuests and other online resources can vary a lot more than actual physical classrooms can cover.


2. Identify and briefly discuss 5 disadvantages of distance education.

While all of those advantages sound great, there are also a few disadvantages to having a distance education. One of these is that these classes lack unity between students, and do not allow students to create relationships with eachother. Going off of that idea, the students also do lack relationship with teacher, which I believe is a crucial element in a classroom. Another drawback is that there is no area for physical spaces to visit, like gymnasiums, libraries, or playgrounds. Coupled with this, there is then no way for individualized students' behavioral issues to handled because the teacher cannot physically regulate what the problem is. Continuing off of that idea, there is no way for teachers to track whether or not a student is actually doing the reading on their own, and furthermore encouraging a decline in physical writing and reading, because the students can easily use an online pronunciation translator or skip physically writing anything out at all.


3. How you would determine the readiness of students to participate in distance education?

Determining the readiness of a student would be difficult, in my opinion. Because I don't necessarily think that online distance education is a very effective way to maintain consistancy in a child's learning, I would definitely have to take a few things into consideration. The first of these would be the child's integrity. If I feel that a student has a hard time staying on task or doing the right thing on their own, I would have a hard time trusting their entire education in their own hands. I would also have to think about whether or not this child would have the support from his/her family in order to stay caught up with the online classes, becuase many problems could arise without this support. Finally, I would have to evaluate the student's willingness to to participate in this distance education. If a student wants to remain in their physical classroom setting, then I believe that they should have that opportunity. These are the three main elements that I would definitely have to take a good, hard look at before referring a student to a distance education.


4. What would you need to do to be ready to teach in an online environment?

As a teacher, it woudl be my responsibility to make sure that I am completely prepared for teaching an online classroom. Making sure that I feel absolutely competant in every web and technological device that we may encounter throughout the course would be a vital element to the preparedness of myself as a distance teacher. Also, I would need to make sure that my schedule would allow me to have enough time to be able to not only instruct the course, but field any questions that my students may have. These are just two things that would help me make sure that I am ready to instruct in an online environment.